Those who serve the Powers.

In a gesture of true and sincere affection, I woke up at *six-thirty in the morning* to meet a friend for breakfast at a local diner I've never been to, where we waited for a literal hour hanging out before the cook came in. Please note that we arrived at open. One of the wait staff was there. The cook was not. Turned out the cook had gone to the store to pick up some things and the store was a madhouse because *checks notes* some of their freezers had gone down during the night.

The breakfast was ultimately delicious and I did make it to church in time for 9 AM choir practice, and we did not get rained on for the procession around the block with the bagpiper. (Episcopalians are just Like This, don't question it.) And then friend came to pick me up for the afternoon tea and we made it *there* on time, and I had successfully managed to quick-change into my new dress while we were trickling in for choir practice Round Two. (It is not correct for Easter Sunday, I will melt and die if I wear it under the choir robes, and also I need to get it hemmed.)

The tea was very pleasant and a very good spread of sweets and treats. Fundraiser for a local nonprofit hospice care facility.

And then we went and paid a couple utility bills and then we went home and I put on PAJAMAS and flopped on the couch for a couple hours and then made dinner and am now flopped on the couch again nursing my finger where the parrot bit me for... something. God doesn't know sometimes.

I am returned home from the frigid NE (*waves to petra, jadelennox, the_jack, teland, jadelennox, gingicat, jjhunter*) to MY OWN BED and MY OWN HOUSE. We stopped on the way back from the airport to pick up some sushi for partner Z and some baked goods for both of us (85 Degrees makes the best strawberry danish croissant things, I love them, we won't discuss my passionate feelings about the choco delight buns and the Hokkaido custard buns).

I hope that the next trip out there will be for a less emotionally-fraught reason, but I know Ny is beaming delight at people who loved her getting to know each other better and is so chuffed at being the reason in-person meetups happened.

Context for the heart-shattering news I got this morning and afternoon.

Cut for medical discussion.
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I don't have a mandarinquat. I've never even seen one. But I do have very very good naval oranges, and I am going to eat one in Ny's honor, and think of her when I eat food I haven't had before.

Hello, Yulegoat! I haven't actually done Yuletide in donkey's years and am very excited to participate again, particularly since there are so many mini-challenges going on.

I'm entirely here for Queering the Tide, Yuleporn, Three Turtle Doves, and any character, Yulegoat, that you are interested in exploring gender with I am Here For, if you want to play with Trans Tide.
( DNW )
Clocktaur War
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Companions of the Night
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DQ8, here's the youtube video of the Marcello cutscenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuqpgWfTZnc
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Spinning Silver
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Brat Farrar
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Immortals Fenyx Rising
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Spindle's End
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Was at the queer youth group I volunteer at last night and the youth came in and were immediately like 'KPOP DEMON HUNTERS!!!' and, you know, the trailer looked cool, I've heard good things, and anyway the youth get to watch what they want to as long as they promise it's appropriately rated. So we put it on.

I have listened to the opening song six times in the subsequent twelve hours. I don't like all the songs in here, but "How It's Done" is absolutely an earworm, and it's an excellent example of how to effectively layer multiple voices. (Alcor Star Systems on Youtube has lyric videos which translate the Korean!)

I want the story where Rumi dodged the entire friend-breakup plotline by just TALKING to her friends like an ADULT, but I don't want to have to write it.

The worldbuilding is pretty shallow; it follows the tropes it's doing closely and there's no twist, which is both a feature and a bug; and the love interest is meh, but it's a very pretty movie with good female friendship and I am entirely here for the core concept of 'Jem and the Holograms but they're also Slayers'.

Some weeks ago, I finally got around to trying a Tumblr recipe for cabbage and pork over rice.

The comic irritates me because what do you MEAN you invited people to dinner, forgot about it, decide to cook them something that takes a good forty minutes, and then don't even give them snacks! At least some crackers or some cheese!

However. The food is in fact delicious. I like to add in whatever other vegetable I have that likes similar cooking: carrot, fennel, whatever. It also works with sausage (today was garlic sausage, and then I added in Penzey's Ozark seasoning, extra caraway, extra white pepper, and some thyme). I anticipate this would work well with non-pork ground meat, but you'd want to add some extra fat.

Makes a solid amount of leftovers for me, too. Even if I do keep forgetting to top with parmesan at service.

Note: this post is emphatically not about losing weight.

HOWEVER. In order to improve my stupid mental and physical health, I have been doing stupid exercise. I hate exercise; I do not experience the endorphins. I just get tired and sore and sweaty and grumpy. HOWEVER again: I have been doing short-form core and mobility workouts on breaks at work and today I have taken TWO short quick walks (one of them in the church garden and I picked up a couple fistfuls of plastic trash blown in off the street) and the worst thing about the whole thing is that it IS working. I wanted to increase flexibility and indeed flexibility is improving.

Rereading Clocktaur War duology and continuing, because of who I am as a person, to be entirely here for Brenner, the assassin with a somewhat flexible approach to basically everything and a distinct investment in the continued health and well-being of our primary narrator, forger Slate.

Cut for a spoiler for the ending.
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I was talking with Te about what I can't stand about Red Hood's introduction, because a fic of hers made me think about what I consider core traits, and now I want Thief King Bakura and Jason Todd grabbing a beer and talking about anger and what you do with it and how you wield it and what, ultimately, the point is to your anger.

I don't want a fusion or a crossover, I don't want to deal with Gotham and Millennium Items, I just want these two guys talking about productive anger vs. vengeance over wings and a beer.

I forgot how *good* DEATHSTROKE 22-23 is. Two-issue arc, and it's just. So good. A magnificent example of how the comics medium works to tell stories in a fashion nothing else can, with the interweaving of text and art. And the characterization -- ! Flawless.

"Don't be in such a _rush_ to _die_. If you want *me* to kill you, you better *hire* me to do it."

"I hate the closeness of people.
"Bodies, and nothing more. Cannon fodder. Potential targets.
"That's how I see them, if I blink my eyes wrong.
"An occupational hazard. One more tendency to fight. So many things to fight."

[taking a fight outside away from the civilians] "I don't want the bloodshed. No. I don't want the _witnesses_."

It's not ROBIN 116-120, but I honestly think those two issues pack some of the most *efficient* character work.